What Are Friends For?
by Ghost501
Summary: Megaman's been struggling to come to terms with just how badly he's messed up. He's failed his family. His brother's home depressed and his father's in the hospital. Will guilt swallow the blue bomber or will reality roll in? A look at one of the three days when Lan's not at school in BN3 after the Flameman incident.


Whoa...is this what a one shot is? Man, it's been a while since I've written one of these. Anyway, this is a day after Flameman's attack on SciLab in BN3. Anyone else but me wondered just how in the world Megaman rebounded that fast?

* * *

Megaman closed his eyes as he walked through ACDC Area 2. He didn't need to see it; he had traveled through this route too many times to not remember it. As he continued his night walk, he felt himself becoming worse rather than better. How could he not? It was his fault this whole thing happened in the first place.

It had only been twenty four hours since Dr. Hikari had been admitted into the hospital. And with every hour that passed, Megaman felt one more ounce of guilt fall on his shoulders. He probably would have thrown up if he could. It had been his fault his father and countless other SciLab scientists had been injured that day. The reasonable side of him told him that there was no way he or his brother—and NetOp—Lan, could have been blamed for this. But, the other side of him overwhelmed it and reminded him every passing minute that this was his fault.

Just a day ago, Lan and Megaman had been tricked by Mr. Match into installing Heat Data into several Mr. Programs around SciLab. It wasn't until too late that they realized that the red haired man had only used them to do his dirty work. He had used the Heat Data to overheat the programs and cause all the machines to spit fire and damage several computers in SciLab. Dr. Hikari, and several others, had ignored the fire alarm and tried to save SciLab's data from being lost forever in the flame.

In the meantime, Match had Lan and Megaman play a little game. His current navi, Flameman, had set up fires all over the Net. If the brothers put out the flames in a Net Area, the man would extinguish some of the fire in the world.

Once they had completed their task, Megaman was challenged to a Netbattle with Fireman in the Undernet. He and Lan emerged from the battle victorious…until Flameman got back up. The navi, spurred on by his operator's hate for the heroic duo, stood back up and was preparing to go back on the offensive. Flameman hadn't been able to attack Megaman though because Bass showed up and deleted him. In a weird way, the dark navi had saved him. However, Bass had his own ideas and demanded a fight with the blue bomber. What happened after he was knocked out, Megaman didn't know. He was just happy that he didn't get deleted.

After he had been jacked out, Lan returned to SciLab to meet his father. When they got there, their dad stayed awake for about three minutes and was in the middle of a thought when he fainted; he had suffered severe injuries from his time in the fire. The fire that Megaman had caused. The fire he hadn't been able to put out in time to save his dad from. Megaman opened his eyes and noticed that he had walked himself back to ACDC Area 1. He was actually right in front of his PC warp. The navi couldn't help but look down at his feet.

If only he had been able to get to Flameman earlier. If only he had been able to see through Match's plan. He had always been the more levelheaded of the two brothers. He should have been able to see through the WWW operative's schemes. He should have been the one to tell Lan that they should just walk away. It was his fault that now his brother stayed in his room, ashamed of what he had done. It was his fault that his father was in the hospital. It was his fault that SciLab had been damaged.

All of it was his fault.

"Mega? What are you doing up so late?" a small voice asked, breaking his internal tirade.

The blue navi jumped at the sound of his pink best friend, "Roll! Don't startle me like that!"

"Sorry, Mega," the navi apologized with a small smile, "So, what are you doing up so late?"

"Couldn't sleep, so I was just walking around," the blue navi said. He hadn't actually slept at all since the incident with his guilt keeping him awake all the time, "What are you up to? It's 11 at night."

"Oh…um…" Roll's cheeks went red, "I…um….forgottofeedthemettuars."

"Forgot to what?"

The pink navi sighed, "Feed the mettuars. I know that we're supposed to delete them but they weren't doing anything other than just standing around next to each other and they looked so cute. I saw one eating a bugfrag and I don't have any use for the ones I find, so I just gave them mine. A few days later, one of them just walked up to me and looked at me. I guess now they think I'm supposed to feed them or something."

"So you feed viruses?"

"Only mettuars. They really don't do anything really bad. They kinda just sit around waiting for me; it's almost as if they were some kind of village or something. I didn't get a chance to come out until now because Mayl got up late this morning. But when I went out there, all the mettuars were gone. I guess they went off looking for food or something."

Megaman couldn't help but give a short laugh. He knew that viruses could be tamed and feed, but he never really considered that all viruses could be. He thought it was only the virus families that SciLab had told him and Lan about. Then again, it would explain why his pink friend had been looking for bugfrags recently.

"Speaking of school, is Lan okay? Mayl got worried when he didn't come into class today," Roll asked.

Megaman tensed as he remembered his brother lying on his bed, completely separated from the rest of the world, "He's just a little off."

"Off like sick?"

"No, it's just that with dad in the hospital he didn't feel like going."

"Oh yeah…," Whatever the navi was about to say seemed to be forgotten about. She had heard that SciLab had been on fire and that Dr. Hikari had been admitted to the hospital. Of course Lan was upset about his dad, "So…how are you?"

"What?"

"Well, he's your dad too so I just thought…"

The blue navi sighed. How could he tell her that he was the reason why his father was sent to the hospital? How could he tell her about the guilt he felt about the whole incident, "I guess I'm not doing too great. I keep on thinking there was some way I could have stopped this. Some way that Dad couldn't have been…"

In a split second, Megaman soon found himself being hugged, "I'm sorry." Megaman felt his words catch in his throat as he accepted his friend's gesture, "I'm sorry that your dad's in the hospital. But there's nothing you can do about it. Just be happy that he's still alive."

"Roll…how'd you…"

"I know that you would do anything to make sure that your dad never got hurt. But you can't be the perfect hero all the time, Mega. Even you can't change the past. Sometimes, things just happen and no matter how much we want to change it…we can't. I…I just don't want you to beat yourself up about it. What's done is done," the navi said as she let go of her friend.

The pink navi flashed a warm smile at him, "Roll…thanks," Megaman said.

"What else are friends for? So, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Maybe…it depends if Lan goes to school or not."

"Okay, well hopefully I'll see you tomorrow. Bye, Mega!"

As Roll left, Megaman couldn't help but wonder if the navi was somehow telepathic. How in the world had she guessed what he was thinking? The navi shrugged and continued back to his PC; perhaps they just knew each other that well. What Megaman did know was that she was right. He couldn't change the past. It made no sense beating himself down for a mistake already done.

And as he teleported into his PC, he finally let the guilt go.

* * *

Yes, Roll did encounter the secretive Mettuar Village from BN4. I thought I'd give her something cute to do at 11 PM. Anyway, BN1 already established that Lan and Mayl and Roll and Megaman are extremely good friends. It's not unlikely that Roll could merely guess that Megaman was beating himself up over the whole incident. This was one of the first times that Lan and Megaman had messed up this bad and people close to them got legitimately hurt. So, Roll merely guessed that Megaman felt like a failure.

Well, that's all for me! See ya later!


End file.
